Re: Reading Aero Club celebrates it's 75th year
Here is a copy of the write up the local paper did for our flying club and the upcoming Open House.
6/7/2008
Reading Aero Club members bank on air time
By Don Spatz
Reading Eagle
Usually when guys get together, they go bowling or fishing, or play golf or some other activity.
When Steve Schory and his friends get together, they fly planes. Or train to fly. Or talk about flying.
Schory is president of the Reading Aero Club, the nation's oldest continuously operating flying club, now in its 76th year, which plans an open house at its Reading Regional Airport base all day next Saturday and Sunday.
The nation has hundreds of such aero clubs with the goal of promoting aviation; neither the commercial airliner kind nor the military kind, but the general aviation kind - the guys who want to fly around not because they've got somewhere to go but because they just want to fly around.
"It's soup to nuts here; we have a variety of people from a variety of backgrounds who just love to fly airplanes," said member Ted Hershberger. "They have a different way of looking at things. That's why we survived."
Chartered in 1932, the club now has 55 members from West Chester to Allentown, nearly all of them active flyers.
Its oldest member is 99-year-old Grant Blimline, a charter member who's no longer active but whose pilot's license was stamped by Orville Wright.
Its oldest flying member is its treasurer, 75-year-old Robert M. Keith.
They offer pilot training, fellowship and two planes - a Cherokee and a Cessna. Member pilots can take the planes for a weekend or so, for the cost of fuel.
"We keep the cost of flying as low as we can keep it," Keith said.
Members buy in for a one-time fee of $750 and are shareholders in the club facilities as well as the planes.
But membership is more than a financial stake. It's camaraderie and a commitment.
The members rebuilt and refurnished the clubhouse on the airport's west apron, from the roof to the carpet to the furniture to the Snapple cooler. They help the airport with its annual Christmas in the Air for children. Some pilot Angel Flights. Others teach. All have the passion.
All are members of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, a lobbying group insisting that airspace stays open for citizens to use. And they have monthly meetings featuring speakers from corporations or an aviation bureau.
Most are men - many with wives who won't fly with them.
Member Robert Beissel said his wife won't fly with him but she'll fly with Keith. Keith said his wife won't fly with him, but will with Beissel. It's a matter of trust, they said.
A few of the nation's aero clubs are older than Reading's, but many went out of business for a time - especially during World War II, when nearly all general aviation was grounded - then came back.
The Reading club never closed, earning it the oldest continuously operating moniker.
But several others closed for financial reasons; they operated on nickel-and-dime budgets and had no money for repairs to planes or facilities.
"We're very conservative," Keith said. "We set aside money for maintenance and overhauls."
But they worry about their future. New pilot starts are down 14 percent, according to the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association. The rising cost of fuel plays a large part.
The club has averaged between 50 and 60 members, but Schory doesn't want it to drop.
That's why the club is running the open house, to entice new members, partly with food and games, partly with short flights for donations, partly by offering trial memberships for $100.
If a prospective member wants to stay, he can pay the remaining $650 later.
The club has two older planes, reliable, but not fancy.
The industry that decades ago brought us ultra lights is changing again, to something called the light sport plane - a two-seater that people can fly without a pilot's license.
"We may have to get into them to survive," Beissel said.
But member Dave Kalbach said the club will wait until a leader emerges from among the several contenders and proves itself before the club would buy one.
"That's the conservative side," Kalbach said.
